So I did, and soon, but in a way I didn’t expect. After he left, Homer came, to haul the Jacks off to town, and I had to load him with care, so the wiring wouldn’t get busted. When he left, it was one, and two when I finished eating, the little bit that I did. But I kept having a feeling, of things about to pop, and of having to hug the bag, so as not to get caught by surprise. I decided on some repairing, a reasonable thing as I thought, since at that time of year, except for spinach, pumpkins, and other late stuff of that kind, nothing was growing at all, and there was no field work to be done. I went out to the implement shed and rolled the harrow out. Then I got my kit of tools, sat down there in the patio, and began tightening bolts. I’d been at it some little time before movement caught my eye, and through the living-room windows saw her car stop out front. I kind of made with my back, so she would have to speak first.
But who spoke was a man, and I almost jumped out of my skin when his raspy voice called: “Hey! Hey you, back there!”
I turned and saw a guy in racetrack clothes, a million miles from anything you’d connect with her. He was in the open living-room door, so she’d apparently brought him in, then asked him to speak to me. He came strutting back, a medium-size man around thirty, with a pasty citified face, a small eyebrow mustache, and a look in the eye that said underworld. I don’t remember speaking, but must have asked if there was something that he wanted, as he said: “I? No. But the lady would like some service.”
“She tongue-tied she can’t ask?”
“She asked me to tell you.”
I walked to the house, trying to make allowance for the state she was in, but still all crossed up as to why she’d be here with this jerk, or give him the idea I was in some way hard to handle. I followed him into the living-room, and there she was on the sofa, still in her hat, still in her new brown suit, looking over brochures that were all spread out on the table. They seemed to be about liquor, from the pictures of bottles and all, and I suddenly remembered what Val had said last night, and had a hunch who this guy was. She looked up and, in a hoity-toity way that wasn’t like her at all, said: “Oh, Duke. Will you take Mr. Lippert’s things? Just put them in the breakfast nook.”
I took his fawn hat, blue scarf, and tan coat, went to the alcove, dumped them on the table, and kept on to the kitchen, trying for a little control. I walked around some minutes, still minding my message to Marge, and telling myself the parade was all hung up until I put the thing over with Holly. It was tough, as Bill had said, but still I had to grin. When I thought I could risk it I went back in the living-room and, as pleasantly as I could, asked if there’d be something else. By then he was on the sofa, sitting close beside her, explaining about some bourbon. He seemed to be making the same pitch Val had spoken of, one to get the Ladyship account. She said: “Please, Duke, a fire. It’s a little chilly in here.”
The furnace worked on a thermostat, so it wasn’t chilly at all, but I went to the cottage, got kindling from the kitchen woodbox, and newspaper from my bedroom. I went back to the living-room, kneeled in front of the fireplace, jammed the paper in, laid the kindling on top. I put a chunk in place, the one Bill had heaved. I put a chunk in front of it and a third one on top. I lit the paper, got up, pushed the fire screen in place. I asked her: “Will that be all, Mrs. Val?”
Instead of answering she let me stand there, turned to him, and asked if the fire wasn’t pretty. He nodded and leaned back comfy. He reached in his pocket and pitched me a half dollar, so it danced on the cocktail table. He reached for her hat, took it off, and dropped it on the sofa. He grinned when she made a face and touched her head to his. I said: “O.K., Mr. Lippert, shove off.”
“...You talking to me, punk?”
“Beat it. Out.”
“Why, you poor, dumb creep—”
He jumped and started at me, then stopped and whipped off his coat, like to hang a sign on it he really meant business now. She got off some chatter, in a foolish unnatural voice, that I’d forgotten myself, hadn’t I? I said nothing, as I couldn’t, on account of the hammers starting, as they always did in my temples when I needed them like a hole in the head. He laid his coat, very careful, out flat on the telephone table, then came rocking over, elbows out, feet tracking wide. He said to me: “I don’t want any trouble with you, didn’t from the start. But if trouble’s what you’re looking for—”
With that he started a hook, the kind a guy uses that thinks he’s a barroom fighter, a mean little junior haymaker supposed to land on my button. He didn’t fall quite where I wanted, right at her feet I mean, because instead of doing a Bordie he went down limp like a dish-rag. However, he fell, twitched once or twice, like a dog having a dream, and curled up, like a cat having a nap. I turned to her, but she had already started for me. She said: “You seem to have it when needed.”
“Have what, you bitch?”
“Adrenalin.”
“And I got more, for you.”
The hammers were smashing me up, and I meant to let her have it, if I knocked her clear through the wall. But she stepped in close, dropped her eyes to my mouth, and said: “You hit him for me, didn’t you?”
I almost broke her bones, mashing her to me, and at last we had that kiss, our first one, hotter than we’d ever dreamed. We held close, and trembled, and cared nothing for what was on the floor. She said: “How could you? Fix to go off and leave me?”
“It wasn’t like that at all.”
“It was, it was! You meant—”
“There was a hell of a lot more to it than you know, or even dream. Damn it, stop talking about that, so we get on what’s to be done.”
“Don’t you — ever again—”
“That’s all under control! Now—”
She strained still closer, slapped me once or twice, and then at last looked at the sleeping beauty. She touched him with her foot, said: “Oh... oh... what can be done, Duke? I didn’t expect this? What’ll we try to do?”
I knelt down, felt for his pulse, and got it, down deep in the wrist, very weak and thready. I said: “He’s still alive — so far. I’ll call the police — say it’s emergency — let them take over from there.”
I went to the phone, but she grabbed me. She said: “Not yet, Duke, not just yet, no. There must be some other way. We can think of something.”
“Listen, he’s alive so far. But—”
“Come in here. Just a minute.”
She took my hand, led me to her bedroom, sat me on the bed, crouched on her heels in front of me. She started to cry, said: “I’ve just ruined it. I thought it would be so nice. That he’d go running off, with a bloody nose or something. That I’d snap my fingers in some kind of silly way. That you’d be down on your knees, saying you’d learned your lesson.”
“And instead of that—”
“I know.”
I had meant it was the opposite of nice, but she thought I meant knees, and flopped down on hers. She leaned her head to my heart, mumbled she’d been a “dunce.” I held her to me, sank my face in her dress, kissed into her neck. She kept coming back to it, she had thought I meant to leave her. She started crying again, said: “I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I had to make you, make you, take me, hold me, love me. You do, don’t you?”
“Haven’t I told you?”
“But tell me now.”
“I do, you know I do, and cut this caper out. Look, don’t you know what’s hanging us up? What everything depends on? Why I asked what I did? About my release and all?”
“...I’m listening, Duke.”